66 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



religion, in short, of an essentially monotheistic character. It was 

 from out of such surroundings as these that Abraham, the friend 

 of God, had gone forth. By his migration from Chaldsea Abra- 

 ham's higher and purer creed was preserved from absorption 

 into the Babylonian polytheism, a fate which must otherwise have 

 inevitably befallen it." Hommel and Sayce are both considered 

 unreliable by many Old Testament students, but at the same time 

 there is this to be said in favor of Hommel' s theory : it is gener- 

 ally conceded by those who have studied Semitic problems that 

 Arabia was the original home of the Semites. Robertson Smith 

 concurs in this view. 



To return to Khammurabi. One of the interesting things 

 about him is that he has been identified by some archaeologists 

 with one of the kings mentioned in the 14th chapter of Genesis, 

 and a statement of some of the different views held in regard to 

 this chapter in Genesis will show something of the influence which 

 Babjdonian civilization and conquest exercised in the land of 

 Canaan. 



In 1869 Theodore Noldeke attempted to prove the fourteenth 

 chapter of Genesis the biassed invention of a later age. Then when 

 archaeology had proved that the titles used were genuine Baby- 

 lonian and Elamitic names, other ground had to be taken. Meyer,- 

 in his History of Antiquity 1884, says, "The Jew who inserted the 

 account (Gen. xiv.), one of the latest portions of the whole 

 Pentateuch in its present position, must have obtained in Babylon 

 exact information as to tlie early history of the country and for 

 some reason, which we are unable to fathom, mixes up Abraham 

 with the history of Kudur-Iyagamar ; in other respects his version 

 of the story accords perfectly well with the absolutely un historical 

 views held by the Jews in regard to primitive ages." Wellhausen 

 in 1889 declared that Noldeke's criticism remained unshaken, 

 adding, " that four kings from the Persian Gulf should in the time 

 of Abraham have made an incursion into the Sinaitic Peninsula, etc. 

 All these incidents are sheer impossibilities which gain nothing in 

 credibility from the fact that they are placed in a world which had 

 passed away." Now it may be confidently asserted that recent 



